


Demons Who Regret

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: Scarred Souls [4]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, GFY, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-25 01:04:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life on his new home is boring and frustrating at turns, most of all the persistent absence of useful memories. Paul wants to go home, but without a gate address he knows, there's no way to get there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Demons Who Regret

He'd stayed with the camp since Aisla had brought him back. Learning from her, and the others who stood watches on the gate, how to use the zat'niktel. Or rather reminding himself of scraps of memory of using it. Remembering what it was called, though never quite where he had learned how to use it. A type of memory unaffected by whatever it was that the demon - goa'uld - had done to him.

Other memories continued to evade him, and he tried to ignore the nagging sensation that what he had forgotten was desperately important. He threw himself into learning what they were trying to teach him. Herding the livestock that provided them with wool and milk and meat, never mind that something in the back of his mind insisted they weren't sheep, despite what they were called here. Hunting with the bow that he was steadily becoming more proficient with despite the certainty he'd never handled anything like it before he came here.

Even that didn't keep the frustration of not remembering at bay when it was dark, the camp quieting around him as most people returned to their tents to sleep. Frustration that drove dreams that were half-memory and utterly confusing when he woke up in the middle of the night, panting and covered in sweat.

"You can't force the memories, Paul." Aisla sat on the far side of the fire from him tonight, the empty bowl that he'd served her soup in cradled in her lap. "I know it is frustrating, I have seen it before, but there is nothing you can do to make them come faster, not here."

Paul sighed, toying with his spoon for a moment. "I know. If I could just remember what the address for home was, I might have a chance there, but even that's a mystery."

"Perhaps someone from there is looking for you." She waited until he looked up at her, raising an eyebrow. "You spoke of something you were a part of, of never leaving a comrade behind."

"It was part of a dream. I don't know if it was actual memory, or just wishing I wasn't alone in a strange place." He let a smile cross his face as she snorted. "I know I have friends here, Aisla, but it's not the same. I don't come from this planet, I didn't grow up with the same traditions..."

"I know," she interrupted him, watching him for a moment. "There has been nothing through the gate, and soon we will have to start moving down to the winter pastures."

"Who watches the gate then?"

"During winter?" Aisla laughed, waving a hand to indicate everything around them. "The world itself does that. Winters in the mountains are harsh, even for the demons and their guardians. We once thought to have guards here the year round, but we lost too many to the cold and the wind. We even once found a demon here, it and its host dead, thawing with the snows."

"Why would they put a gate up in the mountains if it kills them when they come through in winter?" Paul gave up fiddling with his spoon, reaching over to take the bowl from her to go rinse both of them with the water from the carry near his tent. "It would make more sense to build something like that down where it's warm year-round."

"The caves between here and the demon's ring aren't the only ones, simply the ones not carved by the hands of those who served the demons before." Aisla prodded the fire, adding another stick to keep it burning. "There may still be more of the ore the demons wished to steal from the planet, but it isn't one which we can work. Nor is it needed for the arrows, or any other thing which we use."

Building near the desired resources, even if it was potentially dangerous. Paul nodded, settling back down to watch the fire. Not ready to go back to bed and face dreams he couldn't remember again. "How did you make them leave?"

"The stories tell of a demon who regretted what he was, and left the mountains to walk the planet alone. He sent his host back many seasons later with the plant that had caused his death, and with the knowledge of how to use it against the demons. The people rose up and destroyed the demons who enslaved them before they followed the former host from the mountains as winter fell. Those he taught how to use the plant became the tribe who return to the mountains every year to ensure the demons never return."

It was a condensed creation story, and Paul felt the tug of memories again, a name floating up from the depths for the one she had called a demon who regretted. "Tok'ra." He shrugged at her curious look. "The demon who regretted what he was. I think."

"The stories don't give his name, nor that of his host." Aisla stirred the fire again.

Paul shook his head. "It's... not an individual name, I think." It struck him as more a name of several, perhaps simply of any of the goa'uld who didn't take the path that enslaved others. "A kind of demon."

Aisla tilted her head, watching him, and shrugging after a moment. "It would be good to know there are other demons out there who regret what they are, but I think I will not hold out hope of their existence."

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 22 August 2010.


End file.
